Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam

by Bill Yancey

  The clippings about Holden’s death in Puget Sound mirrored Chief Noble’s recollections. Holden, then a first-class petty officer in administration, left a bar late one night and had driven toward the ferry on his way to Seattle. Another vehicle had crossed the centerline of the highway and smashed into his car. He died at the scene. The owner of the other car had reported it stolen two days prior. Blood found in the second vehicle did not belong to the automobile’s owner. The police never found the second driver. They assumed he was intoxicated, had survived, and walked home. Or, he had died in the woods trying to get home. They did not recover a body. They were unaware of any missing persons at that time. The hit and run case remained open and unsolved.

  On October 12, 2000, Chief Petty Officer George Little died on the USS Cole in Yemen when terrorists exploded a bomb near the ship. The guided missile destroyer had been refueling in Aden. Fulton had collected fourteen pages of newspaper and magazine clippings concerning the bombing. Little had been scheduled to retire at the end of the cruise, after nearly thirty five years on active duty.

  Deke Jameson had the misfortune to be in a liquor store during a robbery that went sour. Held as a hostage, he died of a gunshot wound when one of the thieves used him as a shield and attempted to flee the scene. Ten pages were devoted to clippings about his death. Most of them mentioned the fact that the San Francisco Police Department did not recover the weapon that fired the bullet that killed him, even though they detained all the suspects in the robbery. An investigation cleared the police of any liability in Jameson’s death.

  Wolfe closed the scrapbook. “This is your proof that Byrnes is killing your friends?” he said. He realized that Fulton suffered from some form of mental disease, possibly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a psychosis, or both. Still, Fulton should have recognized that these men died from accidents. “These look like accidents.”

  “Byrnes designed them to look like accidents,” Fulton said.

  “Sailors who drink a lot of alcohol, frequent bars, and drive while intoxicated, die from accidents more often than sober civilians,” Wolfe said. “Servicemen put themselves in harm’s way. They die in combat, like Little in Yemen and Montgomery in Kuwait.” He doubted the logic impressed Fulton. The man might never be rational again.

  “No! No!” Fulton yelled. “Byrnes did this. Can’t you see? Are you all blind?” He jumped from his bed and began to swing his fists at Wolfe.

  Wolfe blocked the blows and backed out of the room without retaliating. Fulton followed him, ineffectual blows blocked by Wolfe’s arms. “Nurse!” Wolfe yelled.

  Two large muscular men in white pants and shirts came to his rescue. They restrained Fulton and walked him back into his room. “Sorry, sir,” one of them said. “His medication seems to be wearing off. Maybe you should have a seat the waiting room.” Wolfe agreed.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Is it okay if I put you on speaker phone, Mr. Young?” Wolfe asked the man on the other end of the telephone conversation. “That would make it easier to take notes.” And to keep the phone plugged in for recharging, he thought.

  “Sure, Dr. Wolfe,” said the other man. “Can you speak a little louder?”

  “I’ll try,” Wolfe said. “It may be the poor reception here where I live. If it’s too bad, I’ll drive to Starbucks, or somewhere else so we can talk more easily.”

  “Actually, you sound better on speaker,” Young said. “Call me Steph, though. In your email, you said Tammy Byrnes gave you my name and email address?”

  Wolfe nodded, circling Young’s name on a nearly blank sheet of paper. The man was the first to agree to talk about Byrnes. “Okay, Steph, call me Addy. That’s right. Her last name is Kimura, now, though. Tammy Kimura. She said you and Jim were friends? Is that true?”

  Young laughed. The speaker option on Wolfe’s cell phone made the laugh sound tinny. “Yeah. I suspect I was his only real friend at Hammond High School, with the exception of Emily.”

  “The girlfriend he broke up with after he left Annapolis?”

  “They were pretty much broken up before he dropped out,” Young said. “He came home one weekend sophomore year on crutches, leg in a cast. You could tell something was eating at him. Normally he had a huge smile on his face. The inscrutable Oriental we called him. Always smiling. You never knew what he was thinking, though. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being racist. My mother is also Japanese. My father was in the air force. Met her after the war.”

  “So you had a lot in common with Jimmy, Steph,” Wolfe said.

  “Yeah,” Young said. “Except my father stayed put a lot more. He had four- and five-year tours in SAC and the Pentagon. I had been at Hammond all four years. Jimmy showed up at the beginning of senior year. He didn’t expect to finish high school there, either. He thought his family would be moving between semesters. But his mom chose to stay in Alexandria when the navy transferred his father. I guess they had some marital problems.”

  “I knew him as an enlisted man in the navy, after he left Annapolis,” Wolfe said. “What was he like in high school?”

  “He had a lot of inner dragons, not demons like Caucasians,” Young said, laughing again. “Your first impression of him was he had a chip on his shoulder, or he was arrogant. But he wasn’t. He was very, very reserved, even for a Japanese. Except for Emily and me, I doubt anyone ever saw him open up, relax, and be himself.”

  “Was Emily Japanese, too?” Wolfe asked.

  “No. She was short like an Asian. But she was a natural blonde, with a dynamite body. And she was smart. Editor of the school newspaper her senior year, the year after Jim and I graduated. Even she had a hard time getting him to open up at first. She traded her kisses for his information, I believe.”

  “Because he was new or because he was half-Japanese?” Wolfe asked. “He had no problems with speaking his mind in the navy. On the ship, some people may not have liked his honesty or candor, though. And when he drank he could really get wound up.”

  Young thought for a minute before continuing. Wolfe heard him talk to someone in the background. He continued, “He didn’t drink in high school. His mother kept a tight rein on him. If you went to visit his home, and you were of Japanese descent like me, you saw him bow to his parents. His sisters bowed to him and their parents. All Japanese are made aware of their station in life. It’s part of being Japanese, like eating pizza is part of being American. Captain Byrnes didn’t go to church. Mrs. Byrnes took the kids to temple. She talked with the monks and Buddhist priests a lot.

  “His dad instilled a lot of Annapolis in him, I’m sure, but his mother wanted him to be a Samurai. They even had two Samurai swords that hung over the mantel place. One was his father’s. On graduation from the Academy, they were going to give him the other.”

  “Did you play football with him?”

  “No. Thank goodness,” Young said.

  “Why thank goodness?”

  “They said he was a demon on the field. He had played offensive and defensive lineman in some small high schools as his dad moved around the country. Playing against larger guys, he learned how to hit really hard and to take punishment and protect himself in collisions. I think he only weighed 135-145 pounds as a senior, too. On our team, they made him a cornerback. I rowed crew, but I used to hear the other players in the locker room complain about how hard he hit in practice. They went 6-4 that year. Hammond seldom had winning seasons.”

  “Did you two hear many racial slurs, Steph? He seemed to attract bigots in the navy,” Wolfe said.

  Young paused, then admitted, “There were some rednecks at school. I assume he converted all those on the football team.” Young laughed. “It’s hard to insult a guy who lays you out flat, especially if you outweigh him by fifty pounds. Some kid in homeroom called him a gook once. The football team held a rally at that student’s locker later that day. They bent up the door to his locker so badly that the school had to replace it. The kid kept his mouth shut from then on.”

 
; “Was he comfortable in high school? His sister talks as if they both hated America.”

  “You have to understand there are great cultural differences between the United States and Japan,” Young said. “Jimmy referred to us as mutts. He and his sister interpreted for their mother until her English improved. They grew up quickly. Their father was rarely home. They saw their role as protecting their mother and little sister. It was a burden, I’m sure.

  “The Japanese are a monolithic culture. They revere the emperor, worship him as a god. My mother and his mother tried to impart Japanese cultures to us. My mother insisted that I was put on this Earth to make her miserable. I’m sure his mother felt the same way. We both rebelled at home. But neither of us felt comfortable enough to dissent at school. We were different. Different stands out. American high schools are intimidating, even for full-blooded American kids. And full-blooded Japanese are yin-yang anyway: loyal vs. treacherous; non-accessable vs. accessible; militaristic vs. aesthetic; submissive vs. resentful. You get the idea. We didn’t fit in, in either culture. I still don’t.”

  “I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me, Steph,” Wolfe said. “I’m sure I’ll think of more questions as I dig into this a little more.”

  “What, exactly are you investigating?” Young asked.

  “Initially, I was interested in finding out why someone would use Jimmy’s name while trying to kill a dead man. I told you about that in the email. Then I wanted to make certain his family knew what a fine young man he was when I knew him. Then some asshole CIA agent told me I shouldn’t have an interest in MIAs from the Vietnam War. That made me mad as hell. I may have to travel all the way to Vietnam to find out for myself what happened to him. I’m sorry I didn’t know twenty years ago what I know now. By the way, have you kept in touch with Emily Rose?”

  “She is Emily Thornton, or was until she divorced the jerk. Max Thornton was a star basketball player in her class at Hammond. They got married after college, had two or three kids and a divorce about ten years later. I expect she has remarried,” Young said. He paused. “You know, I believe I know someone who has her email address. I have your email address; I’ll send you all the information I can dig up. I’m curious myself as to what she’s doing these days. Good talking to you, Doctor.”

  “Addy’s fine,” Wolfe reminded him. “Thanks, Steph. Keep in touch. Bye.”

  “Bye, Addy.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “Your coffin will have to be bigger than that, Con co,” Tran Hien said to Byrnes.

  “Am I building mine this time, Corporal Hein?” Byrnes asked.

  “Of course not,” Tran said, smiling. “We need too many to let you rest.”

  Byrnes had been with the prisoner detail for over a year in 1974. He knew from listening to the guards that they were located in a forest near Thanh Hoa about 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, south of Hanoi. Not that he wanted to go to Hanoi. There were no more American prisoners in Hanoi. They had departed and been repatriated in the United States weeks before Byrnes had been marched into this camp. He had arrived along with a hundred other prisoners, mostly South Vietnamese, but also some Korean and Chinese captives.

  Byrnes had been aware of a group of Caucasians in the prison camp and had tried to communicate with them when the guards’ attention was elsewhere. Given his Asian appearance, they, like Rhodes, took him for a North Vietnamese plant. Byrnes thought the men could have been American or Australian. Shortly after he tried to make contact, they disappeared from camp. About a week later, their heads returned to the encampment on long poles. The NVA planted the poles at the gated entrance to the camp for many months: a warning to the remaining prisoners that escape attempts were futile and fatal.

  If there were one redeeming value to the work battalion, it was that Byrnes at last received enough nourishment. Starving men had no strength for the physical labor required of them. The prisoners received all the rice they could eat, plus bananas and wild fowl. A guard had been designated to hunt game animals to supplement the protein that the guards and prisoners received. The camp had its own vegetable garden with sweet potatoes, corn, cabbage, and pumpkins tended by prisoners. From a nearby river a prisoner detail caught fish daily. Byrnes had even developed a taste for nuoc mam. No longer on a starvation diet, he regained some weight and strength. Chopping down trees or sawing wood all day burned most of those calories, but also rebuilt muscle. Physically, he could have been in the best shape of his life. He and the remaining prisoners worked to turn an entire pine forest into coffins.

  “How is your leg?” Tran asked.

  “Until last month I would not have believed in acupuncture,” Byrnes said. “That and the herbal medicine seem to have healed it completely. No more swelling. No more pain. Does that mean I will go back to using an ax on the trees?”

  “Don’t you like cutting boards better than felling trees?” Tran asked Byrnes.

  “I miss walking through the forest,” Byrnes said.

  “Do you miss the danger?”

  “If you mean the tigers,” Byrnes said, “falling trees, tree limbs, and careless use of axes killed more men than the tigers. I only saw one. One of the guards injured two prisoners when he shot at it. And because he wounded it, they had to send a patrol after it to make certain it didn’t return looking for human meals.”

  “True,” Tran said. “And there is danger in this work, too. The saw you are sharpening or the wood you are cutting could cut or pierce your skin.”

  Byrnes nodded. He used a stick to measure one of the floor planks for the next coffin. There were no measuring tapes or power saws. Marks on a long stick gave him the dimensions of the typical coffin. Just as in Moscow under communist rule there was one automobile factory and one automobile design, in Vietnam there was one coffin factory and one standard design. If a dead soldier didn’t fit in his coffin, the undertaker made him fit. Byrnes suspected his head would sit between his legs, if he did, indeed, take his final rest in one of the work battalion’s creations.

  Byrnes began to suspect Tran had something on his mind. Usually the guards wandered around camp, occasionally yelling, but mostly prodding the prisoners to work, not goof off or gossip. It was unusual for one to stay in the same spot for long. “When you finish cutting that plank, you need to report to the company clerk,” Tran said.

  Byrnes stopped marking the wood. He stared at Tran. Although Tran was a guard and had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, he did not return Byrnes’s gaze. Whenever a prisoner reported to the clerk, bad things could happen. “Do you know why?” Byrnes asked.

  Tran turned his back to Byrnes. “Keep working,” he said quietly, his eyes searching the rest of the camp. “Pretend we are not talking.”

  “Okay,” Byrnes said. He finished marking the plank. Then he picked up his handsaw and a small file. Peering closely at the saw blade, he took the file to one tooth. The scraping noise masked their conversation. “What’s going on?”

  “The ceasefire has given us time to find and bury the dead. This camp will close soon,” Tran said. He lit a cigarette and stared in the distance, watching as many men struggled to roll a portion of a large pine tree trunk into camp on two two-wheeled carts. The first two men tried to steer the leading cart by pulling on ropes.

  Byrnes smelled the potent thuoc lao tobacco from the cigarette rolled by the guard. “What will happen to the prisoners?” Byrnes asked.

  “Some will be released. Their time is up. Some have been re-educated. They will become agents for us in the south,” Tran said, blowing smoke from his nose and mouth.

  “Not me, though.” Byrnes said. Although he had worked as hard as every other prisoner had, he had resisted re-education. The NVA had not been able to turn him against the United States.

  “You and about ten others are going to join the Van Kieu, who we call Bru, when they deliver the coffins,” Tran said. “The forest people have lost a lot of men. They need help making the delivery. I don’t know if they are as liberal as o
ur camp commander. He is smart enough to realize that starving, sick men cannot accomplish the goals set by generals in Hanoi.”

  “When will the Bru arrive?” Byrnes asked.

  “Soon.”

  Two days later, with the heaviest of the recently constructed coffins strapped to his back, Byrnes joined a long line of shorter, darker men climbing out of the forest into the mountains along a trail leading south and west. From the air, it would appear that a long line of wooden boxes walked south on men’s legs, not unlike ants carrying grains of rice. The NVA had no roads or trucks that would penetrate this forest. If it had, the communist government would not have wasted the petrol to run those vehicles in order to deliver coffins. There was a war yet to win.

  Byrnes understood almost none of the Bru language. Although treated passably well for a prisoner, he found himself chained by one ankle to a tree each night. Exhausted, he realized the guards wasted their time; he scarcely moved once he lay his burden down. In addition to the sixty pounds of casket he toted seven to ten miles per day, he had to haul his own water, and the shackle and chain.

  A mule lugged bags of rice and water for the delivery patrol as well as one coffin. Byrnes pitied the animal. Every man received the same size portion of rice and pork at breakfast and again at the end of the day. Most men slept in their burdens, the flat, soft pinewood being more comfortable than the rocks and tree roots along the trail.

  One month later, Byrnes and the Bru trudged into Khe Ve, North Vietnam, one hundred eighty miles northwest of Hue, South Vietnam. American aircraft had bombed the once pretty village of Khe Ve heavily. Villagers lived in makeshift shelters in the woods, far from the center of the hamlet, now a ghost town of shattered buildings.

  Children babbled and ran alongside the multitude of NVA, Laotians, Cambodians, Thais, and prisoners. Their hands out, the street urchins tried to sell candy or cigarettes to the men in trucks, on bicycles, in beat-up motor cars, and on foot. Most soldiers ignored the waifs. Others slapped or kicked at the pests. Old men and women worked at filling bomb craters with short shovels.